Dr Colletta Dalikeni, Lecturer in Social Care Work DKIT

1. 9th BASPCAN Congress 2015: “New Directions in
Child Protection and Well-being: making a real
difference to children’s lives”
The State as party to child maltreatment- lessons from
Research on the impact of Direct Provision on
children of asylum seekers in Ireland
Dr. Colletta Dalikeni,Lecturer in Social Care Work DKIT
Colletta.dalikeni@dkit.ie
1

2. Background to the Research
Number of Asylum Applications Received in
Ireland per year 1992-2013
2

3. Questions addressed by the Research
(1)What were the experiences of child protection
social workers of working with asylum seeking
families?
(2)What were the experiences of asylum seeking
families of working with child protection social
workers?
3

4. Research Methodology: Qualitative Approach –
Action Research
REVISED
PLAN
PLAN
ACT AND
OBSERVE
ACT AND
OBSERVE
REFLECT
REFLECT
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5. Research Methodology
 Overall orientation of the research was Action
Research
 Data collection method: Biographic Narrative
Interpretive Method(BNIM)
 Thematic analysis was used to analyse data
 Sample size: In total, twenty people were
interviewed,10 social workers [all Irish]
 10 family members
 Family members originated from Nigeria, DRC Congo,
South Africa.
 Research Limitations: Not representative

6. Single Question aimed at inducing narrative
(SQUIN)
SQUIN for Social Workers : “As you know, I am interested in
the experiences of child protection social workers who have
worked with refugees or asylum-seeking families. Can you please
tell me the story of your intervention with the X family? I am
interested in all the events and experiences that were important
to you personally. I will listen first, I will not interrupt. I will just
take some notes in case I have any questions when you have
finished. Please take the time you need. We have got about 1-2
hours or more if need be. I will tell you if we are running out of
time. Please begin wherever you like.”
6

7. Single Question aimed at inducing narrative
(SQUIN)
SQUIN for families: “As you know, I am interested in the
experiences of asylum seeking families of working with child
protection social workers…. Can you please tell me the story
of your intervention with social worker K? I am interested in
all the events and experiences that were important to you
personally. I will listen first, I will not interrupt. I will just
take some notes in case I have any questions when you have
finished. Please take the time you need. We have got about
1-2 hours or more if need be. I will tell you if we are running
out of time. Please begin wherever you like.”
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8. Research Findings:
Themes which Emerged from Social Workers’
Narratives
1. Trust/Mistrust
2. Age Assessment
3. Immigration/Direct Provision
4. Cultural Differences
5. Communication- Linguistic Issues
6. Racism
7. Legal concerns and cultural practices
8. Empathy and the impact of personal experiences on practice
9. Training
10. Interagency collaboration
11. Resources
12. The Role of the Social Worker
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9. Research Findings:
Themes which Emerged from Families’
Narratives
1. Trust/Mistrust
2. Immigration
3. Isolation and Lack of support Network
4. Impact of Direct Provision on parenting
5. Parenting in Direct Provision
6. Deportation
7. Cultural Differences
8. Language and Communication
9. Racism
10. Legal Concerns and Cultural Practices
9

10. Direct Provision: A recipe for Disaster
 Photos from www.irishtimes.com/news/lives-in-limbo -Images taken
by asylum seekers of their living conditions in the Direct Provision
System-To see more visitwww.asylumarchive.co
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11. Lives in Limbo
 Short 6 minute video clip made by the Irish Times
with asylum seekers living in Direct Provision and
released online in August 2014
 Words: Carl O'Brien. Additional reporting by Sinéad
O'Shea.Video & Photography: Bryan O'BrienDesign,
Graphics & Production: Paul Scott
 Link to video clip https://vimeo.com/110572996
11

12. Direct provision System
 Direct provision system ‘set up in 2000 for people claiming asylum,
Initially the system was only intended to house applicants for six
months. Those interviewed as part of this study had been in the
system between 5-7 years
 Prior to 1999, asylum-seekers were able to avail of mainstream social
welfare entitlements such as housing allowance and maintenance
allowance and were thus not treated differently to others dependent
on the State for support.
 Asylum-seekers receive an allowance of €19.10 each week per adult
and €9.60 per child, a rate that has not changed since the system was
introduced over 15 years ago.
 The Reception and Integration Agency (RIA)was established in 2001
by the Dept of Justice to oversee the system of Direct Provision. 12

13. Children in Direct provision
 At present, more than one third of residents in Direct
Provision centres are children, many of them born in
Ireland or very young when they first enter the system,
 Their formative developmental years being spent in a form
of institutionalised living.
 Presently this group of children seems to fall outside of the
State’s concern.(Hiqa, the children’s ombudsman remit not
extended to children of asylum seekers.
 At the end of March 2012, there were 5,098 residents in
Direct Provision. 1,789 of these, or 35 per cent, were
children under the age of 18 13

14. Direct provision- The Cost
Irish Times (Dec 2014)
 Direct Provision provided by private contractors in hostels, hotels,
convents, bed and breakfasts and mobile homes.
 In all, there are 17 firms which receive about €50 million a year to
run 34 accommodation centres across the State, providing for
about 4,000 asylum seekers (Irish Times Dec 2014)
 A recent publication by the Irish Times show that many are highly
profitable and have recorded six or even seven-figure pre-tax
profits.
 Further revelations by the Irish times also show that some larger
companies have moved to shield their accounts from public
scrutiny by creating unlimited companies, often with parent firms
in off-shore jurisdictions
14

15. Direct Provision/Immigration:
Social Workers /Families themes
SOCIAL WORKERS
FAMILIES
Experiences of working
with families in direct
provision
Experiences of working
with families who are
subject to deportation
orders
Experiences of child
protection and
Immigration Services
Experiences of
possible deportation
15

16. Social Worker: On Direct Provision
 “I see the whole concept of direct provision
centres and the restrictions put on people as
crazy. Those people have no rights to anything in
the asylum process. They can’t work. They are
not entitled to benefits. All they get is 19 euro a
week. But some of these are qualified people who
have skills to offer, who are willing, able and
would like to work.”
16

17. Social Worker On Direct Provision
“It is institutional life. It’s bad for children; it’s bad for
the families and definitely would drive anybody crazy.
Even for those without mental health problems, I say
they get them from the kind of life, waiting in limbo for
a decision that takes forever.”
17

18. Family Member: On Direct Provision
 “Being in the asylum system is like your life ‘is on hold’. You
can’t go anywhere or anything, only sit and wait. I have been
here for the past 5 years waiting for a decision on my asylum
application. I am grateful to have a roof over my head and it is
safe here for me and my children. They try to help me. I mean,
I don’t owe these people anything; it is even good for them to
look after me and my children but this place is like a prison. It
was okay for 2 months, 4 months, but when I realised I was
going to be here for a year or more I started to feel very lonely.
It is like you are in prison.”
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19. Family Member: On Direct Provision
“It is hard to get to know the people in the camp. You
have to be very careful because even if they are from
your own country, they could be from the dangerous
part and you could put yourself in the same danger you
are fleeing away from; so you have to be careful.”
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20. Family Member on Direct Provision
“I started to feel as if I was going crazy in my head,
I was thinking about my other children I had left
[at] home. My brother had been killed and I was
wondering if I would ever see my older children
again. I had no other way of contacting them.”
20

21. Parenting in Direct Provision:
Reflection
Research has emphasised difficulties of parenting
in direct provision for both children and adults,
 IRC, 2001; Integrating Ireland
 Children’s Rights Alliance 2009)
 Arnold, S.K. (2012) State sanctioned child poverty and
exclusion. The case of children in state accommodation
for asylum seekers
 AkiDwA (2013) Concern Over African Children in
State Care. Letter to Irish Times 7.11.13
21

22. Parenting in Direct Provision:
Reflection
 The most significant maltreatment issues impacting on
children include:
 (1) Cultural and linguistic misunderstanding which can lead to
children being unnecessarily taken into care thus fracturing
the family and causing untold stress to children.
 (2) Parental anxieties about Direct Provision difficulties and/or
immigration status resulting in mental health problems, this in
turn having a negative impact on children.
 (3) Isolation from the community.
 (5) Overcrowding.
 (4) Child poverty.
22

23. Direct Provision:
Reflection on Government Response
Disturbing: that while there have been
numerous revelations of institutional child
abuse in Ireland in recent years, the plight
of children in Direct Provision
has received little government
attention. This is the case in
spite of the work of various NGOs in this field
and the media's highlighting of issues in relation
to such children
23

24. Direct Provision:
Reflection on Government Response
 Apart from curtailing entitlements under the social welfare
scheme, the system violates a number of rights as enshrined in
a number of National policy guidelines and UN treaties. E.g
 Ireland’s obligations under the United Nations Convention on
the Rights of the Child (CRC 1989) to which Ireland is signatory
 The goals of the National Children’s Strategy (2001)
 The Programme for Prosperity and Fairness (2000) and the
National Anti-Poverty Strategy” and
 The National Action Plan for Social Inclusion 2007-2016
 National Action Plan for Social Inclusion 2007-2016
 Principles of ‘Children First: National Guidance for the Protection
and Welfare of Children’, (2011) 24

25. Research Findings:
Interrelated Factors from Families and Social Workers
leading to Mutual Mistrust
SOCIAL
WORKERS
FAMILIES
Lack of knowledge of a
different culture
Mistrust of families.
Influenced by wider society's
perception of asylum seekers
at the time
Social workers role as State
agents
Social workers trusted in cases
where their role was perceived
as that of a parent
Mistrust caused by families
asylum status
25

26. Social Worker: On trust and the role of
child protection social workers
“Another thing is that most families who are in the
asylum process do not trust social workers because
they know we work with immigration officers . At the
end of the day we are authority – like immigration
officers.”
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27. Family member: On Trust and the perceived
role of child protection social workers
 “You wouldn’t want to tell them much; you
wouldn’t know where it will end. They work
with the immigration people it’s hard to trust
them.”
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28. Social worker: On the role of child
protection social workers
 “There is a bit of contradiction in the social work role
as well in that we are officials within a government
department, so maybe they were right not to trust
us because at the end of the day we are official
people and we can’t be withholding information if
we are aware of some information”
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29. Family member: on the role of the social
worker
 In my country the social workers- they would help
you if you were having problems, but here they
seem to come to you even when you do not go
looking for them. If someone tells them something
about you they come to talk to you. They ask too
many questions- they are like immigration officers
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30. Social Worker: On Trust
“I knew from talking to the children that they were
suspicious of me, because they said very little. Even
when I tried to get to know them by probing into the
stories of what life was like at home they said very
little. I tried to earn their trust. It was difficult to get
to know them.”
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31. Family member: On Trust
 “The social worker was very good to us; she used to
bring us to Dublin on the train to go to the Justice
office and she would talk to us. There was only so
much you could tell the social worker. They are like
school teachers; they help you out but you don’t tell
them everything about your family. It was nice to
have an adult there because the Justice office is very
scary; they ask you so many questions.”
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32. Family member: On Trust and
documentation
 “The social workers they said they wanted my
children’s birth certificate and I told them I didn’t have
them because they were burned when the houses
were set on fire by the other tribal groups who were
fighting us. It was a difficult situation. You just
thought of running away and saving the children; you
never thought of bringing all these things.”
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33. Social Worker: On Trust and
documentation
 “Sometimes I wondered if Dorothy just used the
children so that she could get into the country. Her
stories were always contradictory, one time she said
Susan was 10 years old and then another time she said
the child was 12. I was like God, can you make up your
mind? I found if difficult to take Dorothy seriously and I
wondered why she found it necessary to lie. Her stories
most of the time did not add up. She did not have any
form of identification for the children- nothing at all”....
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34. Social Workers/ Families
Trust
Trust Challenges:
 The care and control aspect of the role of child protection
social workers.
 Social workers not seen by families as independent of
immigration officers (officialdom)
 Asylum seeking families status –no documentation, living in
direct provision and challenges of parenting in DP, waiting for
decision of status
34

35. Direct Provision/Immigration:
Social Workers /Families themes
SOCIAL WORKERS
FAMILIES
Experiences of working
with families in direct
provision
Experiences of working
with families who are
subject to deportation
orders
Experiences of child
protection and
Immigration Services
Experiences of
possible deportation
35

36. Social Worker: On working with
Immigration officials
 “It’s hard to work with immigration. You are
planning one thing for the family and they are
working on another and sometimes you have to
wonder; it’s like the right hand does not know what
the left hand is doing. It’s difficult to know what to
do when families we work with are also involved
with immigration.”
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37. Social Worker: On working with
Immigration officials
“You can’t plan for families as you do not know
whether they will be there the next day or not. How
can you develop a care plan? It’s difficult to know
and very demoralising in one’s work.”
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38. Social Worker: On working with
Immigration officials
““I found the system quite secretive in the way they
work. I didn't know what to expect anymore than the
young people themselves. The building was not child
friendly the officers wore suits it was like a criminal
court. Children were treated like adults, as if they had
to answer accusations. I didn't approve of that, I
didn't think it was helpful. The one thing I remember
was the fear in the children when they had to answer
accusations put to them.”
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39. Social Worker: On working with Immigration
officials
 “I was given the impression that I was not
allowed to advocate for the young people, I was
merely accompanying them. It was a
Department of Justice process. I remember
when the introductions where going on they
were not interested in my name or where I was
coming from”.
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40. Social Worker: On Deportation
 “I could understand the stress and her fear of being
deported. She had experience of one of her best
friends being deported back to Nigeria and this
person killed herself and killed her children by
setting them on fire.”
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41. Recommendations
 Need to review the direct provision system and replace
with a fair and equitable system
 Systems reform of interagency collaborative work
between social workers and immigration officers.
 Ensure asylum seekers in DP are given more choice and
autonomy
 Review and increase allowance
 HIQA’and the Children’s Ombudsman roles and remit
need to be extended to families in direct provision cent
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42. Recommendations
 Ireland should review its decision not to ratify the EU Reception
Conditions Directive, which would allow all asylum seekers to
work after a period of 6 months. Ireland and Denmark are
currently the only EU countries that do not grant such a right.
 The introduction of more supportive services/early intervention
programmes for asylum seeking families
 Need to review the time spent in direct provision by families
 Need for political will and Government commitment to
protection of the best interests of the child in all circumstances.
42

43. References
 Arnold, S.K. (2012) State sanctioned child poverty and exclusion. The case of children in state accommodation for
asylum seekers. Dublin: Irish Refugee Council. Available at: http://www.irishrefugeecouncil.ie/children-and-
young-people/children-in-direct-provision-accommodation/attachment/state-sanctioned-child-poverty-and-
exclusion
 AkiDwA (2013) Concern Over African Children in State Care. Letter to Irish Times 7.11.13
http://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/letters/concern-over-african-children-in-state-care-1.1586076
 AkiDwA (2010) Am Only Saying it Now: Experiences of Asylum Seeking Women in Ireland. Dublin:AkIDWA
 Christie, A. (2003) Unsettling the 'social' in social work: responses to asylum seeking children in Ireland. Child
and Family Social Work, 8 (3): 223-231
 Christie A. (2006) From racial to racist state: questions for social professionals working with asylum seekers.
Irish Journal of Applied Social Studies, 7 (2): 35-51
 Coulter, C. (2014) Second interim report: Child Care Law Reporting Project. http://www.childlawproject.ie/wp-
content/uploads/2014/10/Interim-report-2-Web.pdf
 Coulter, C (2013) Interim Report: Child Care Law Reporting Project. Available at:
http://www.childlawproject.ie/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/correctedinterimreport.pdf
 Dalikeni, C. (2013) Making Sense of Each Other, Lived Experiences and told stories of asylum seeking families
and child protection social workers, PhD thesis submitted to Queens University Belfast. Available at: Dkit Open
Access-STÓR: Thesis link http://eprints.dkit.ie/379/
 Dolan N & Sherlock, C. (2010) Family support through childcare services: meeting the needs of asylum seeking
families. Child Care in Practice, 16 (2)
 FLAC (2009) One Size Doesn’t Fit All –a legal analysis of the Direct Provision and Dispersal System in Ireland 10
Years On, Dublin:FLAC
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44. References
 Nwachukwu, I.,Browne, D. , Tobin, J. (2009) The Mental Health Service requirements for Asyulm Seekers and
Refugees in Ireland. Report by Working Group of Adult Psychiatry Faculty, Irish College of Psychiatrists
 Okitikpi, T and Aymer, C (2003) ‘Social Work with African Refugee Children and Their Families’, Child and Family
Social Work 8(3): 213-222
 Rape Crisis Network of Ireland (2014) Asylum Seekers and Refugees, Surviving on Hold. Sexual Violence Disclosed
to Rape Crisis Centres in 2012. Dublin: RCNI
 Ruch, G. (2005) Relationship-based practice and reflective practice: holistic approaches to contemporary child care
social work. Child & Family Social Work, 10: 111-123
 Shannon, G. (2012) 5threport of the Special Rapporteur on Child Protection: A report submitted to the Oireachtas.
Available at: http://www.dcya.gov.ie/documents/publications/5RapporteurRepChildProtection.pdf
 Thornton, L. (2014) Direct Provision and the Rights of the Child in Ireland. Irish Journal of Family Law 17(3):68-76
 Toar, M., O’Brien, K.K., Fahey, T.P. (2009) Comparison of Self-eported Health and Health Care Utilisation between
Asylum Seekers and Refugees: an observational study. BMC Public Health Vol. 9:214
 Uchechukwu Ogbu, H. (2012) Parenting in Direct Provision: parents’ perspectives regarding stressors and
supports. Galway: Child & Family Research Centre. Available at:
http://www.childandfamilyresearch.ie/sites/www.childandfamilyresearch.ie/files/parenting_in_dp_report_nov_2012.
pdf
 Valtonen, K (2001) ‘Immigrant integration in the welfare state: social work's growing arena’, European Journal of
Social Work 4(3): 247-262
 Wade, J. (2011) Preparation and transition planning for unaccompanied asylum-seeking and refugee young
people: A review of evidence in England. Child & Youth Services Review, 33: 2424-2430

45. Thank you for listening
Questions /Comments welcome
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